Ḫegir
Ḫegir or Ḫegirnunna was a Mesopotamian goddess who belonged to the pantheon of Lagash. She was considered a daughter of Bau and Ningirsu.
Name
The reading of the first cuneiform sign in the theonym dḪÉ-gír is not certain. Among the authors who employ the form Ḫegir are Wilfred G. Lambert and Andrew R. George. Toshiko Kobayashi omits the breve below the first consonant, and renders the name as Hegir. The romanization Gangir has also been proposed, and has been adopted for example by Mark Cohen. Kobayashi refers to Ḫegirnunna as the full form of the name, but notes that the difference between the variants seems to be chronological, with the shorter form being older.It is assumed that gír in the short form and gír-nun in the long one both refer to a procession route located in Girsu, and that ḪÉ might represent an allograph of the word gemé, which makes it possible to translate the name from Sumerian as "the maid of the way".
Associations with other deities
An inscription from the reign of Urukagina refers to Ḫegir as the "beloved lukur of Ningirsu," while in another, from the time of Gudea, she is directly referred to as the daughter of this god and Bau. The latter can be found on Gudea Cylinder B. The term lukur referred to a class of priestesses, and the existence of a group of nine women bearing this title who took part in the cult of Ningirsu is attested in Early Dynastic texts from Girsu. It has been proposed that lukur were understood as the junior wives of a god.Alongside Shulshaga and Igalim, who were also regarded as children of Bau and Ningirsu, as well as divine servants such as Lammašaga, Ḫegir belonged to the household of these two deities. In the times of Gudea, she belonged to a group referred to as "the seven lukur priestesses of Ningirsu" and "the septuplets of Bau", which also included Zazaru, Nipa'e, Urnunta-ea, Ḫesaga, Zurmu and Zarmu. However, according to Gebhard J. Selz Ḫegir was originally a deity of greater importance than the other six, and it is possible that initially only Urnunta-ea, Zazaru and Nipa'e, who also occur together in an earlier inscription from the reign of Urukagina, formed a group.